Moments before the warm-up period ended, Ruez went on stage to give one of his usual speeches. To start off, he got everybody’s attention with a BIG THUNDERING CLAP.

  “Ah!” Everybody jumped at the explosive sound. No matter how many times they’ve heard it by now, they could never get used to the sound of a bomb going ht o them.

  And so, Ruez’s speech began. As usual, it had a rather lengthy intro about the Leopards’ image as the regional champions and how the team was expected to perform spectacurly in order to inspire others to work harder.

  However, this time, Ruez cut to the chase much faster.

  “With all certainty, your oppos today are a league above the previous ones you’ve faced, so make sure you don’t uimate them. Stratus was known as a weak team for many years, but that has nothing to do with their lihis year.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cato replied and the others nodded in approval.

  “With that said,” Ruez tinued. “I’m still expeg you to win three games in a row. Stratus indeed has some very talented pyers, but remember - ead every one of you is a first-string pyer of the Leopards. Therefore, on this team, ead every pyer is talented beyond measure. I know that for a fact, for I’m the one who handpicked you for the first-string.”

  Ruez remihem how everybody on this team went through two long years of advaraining in the club, save for Ronald who was a year youhahers. The four seniors accumuted priceless experience, both in the club and in practice games against pros, making the team ready for almost anything that might e their way.

  The coach’s lectures always got needlessly lengthy like that, but they did their job of instilling the pyers with fidence.

  And, they’re also great at applying pressure. Cato twitched unfortably. He was the captain of this prestigious team, so everybody pced their expectations on him. It was no easy burden to carry.

  But, there’s no such thing as effortless world domination. iled impishly. If I want to and this army of minions and domihe world with them, I got no choice but to subject myself to some stress and pressure. So, I gdly accept this burden.

  While the coach droned on, the other team was also mentally psyg itself for the uping match. Stratus didn’t have a coach to give them a speech, so they had to improvise.

  After they warmed up enough, the eeam grouped up at the back of the stage. They joiogether with the subs who had to sit this game out, by Lars’s passionate request.

  “Let’s do this, yo!” Lars thrust his hand forward, signaling the others to do the same.

  “Are we seriously doing this?” Kai made a face.

  “, yo! We should turn this into a tradition!”

  “I agree.” Luke pced his hand on Lars’s. “This is what all the cool sports teams in the movies dht?”

  “Indeed!” Vi also pced his hand. “This ritual shall announce our radery to the universe and grant us access to the uable power of friendship!”

  “Holy, it’s a little embarrassing,” Yuel said. “But, I think it’s good for the team’s morale.” Thus, he pced his hand all the same.

  “If you say so...” Kai couldn’t be the only oo object, so she joined in oual.

  “Theoo.” Ben also joined in after everybody else agreed.

  “, Nia,” Kai urged. “You too.”

  “Gufu...” Nia wobbled closer to the pack, with her eyes half-closed. Her steps were so unsteady that it looked like she’ll colpse at any sed.

  Eventually, Nia successfully reached the pad brought her hand closer... but pletely missed the mark and tripped forward, nding with her fa the pile of hands.

  “Zzz...”

  “Is this girl for real? Haha!” Luke ughed. “She’s one heck of a riot.”

  “Nia, that’s not the body part you’re supposed to pce here...” Kai criticized with a muffled chuckle.

  “No big deal.” Lars proceeded with the ceremony as if everything was in order. “! Owo, three!” They raised their hands simultaneously, ign the human head lying on top.

  “Gufu!” Nia got tossed away to the distance.

  “Haha!” Luke ughed. “That was some big yeetus!”

  “Nia, you okay?” Kai asked, but she didn’t get a response.

  “Zzz....” Nia already seized the opportunity to take a nap on the floor after beied.

  “, wakey-wakey. The match is starting up.”

  “Zzz...”

  “Everybody in the audience is watg,” Yuel added. “You don’t want to sleep on the floor in front of them, right?”

  “Gufu!” Nia jumped on her feet with an ued burst of energy. Then, she slowly, very slowly, turned her eyes to the audience. A shudder ran through her once she registered the sheer number of the people watg her every move.

  “I-I’m going!” Nia strode toward her chair with robotic motions. For the better or the worse, her stage-fight finally kicked in.

  It was both a blessing and a curse. The pressure might help keep her awake, but it’ll probably also hurt her performan the process.

  I really hope she’s going to be okay... Yuel frowned as he went back to his seat. After taking a deep breath, he finally came to a decision. Well, that settles it. I was already thinking of turning the first game into a “test run” of sorts, and now it looks like I have no choice but to treat it as one. Before anything else, we first o see how we measure up to our oppos.

  Iwo scrimmages the Leopards have had thus far, the regional champions thhly decimated their oppos. With that huge skill gap, the matches didn’t look like anything that eveely resembled a petition.

  As a result, it was difficult to tell where the pyers of Stratus stood pared to that powerhouse. Were they close in skill level? Or, were they terribly far?

  I’m sure Lars and I will be fine. Yuel thought. And, Kai should have no problems either as long as she pys like her usual self. But, what about the rest? And overall, how do we measure up to the Leopards as a team? These are questions we have to answer before anything else. Without that information, it’s impossible to form a reliable game pn.

  “Listen,” Yuel started. “Do you remember how I mentioned before that we might want to treat the first game as a ‘test run’ of sorts? Keep that in mind as you py this game. This isn’t a tour matd it’s a best-of-five, so it’s more important for us to gain information from this game than to ht win it.”

  “And like I said st time,” Kai argued. “I don’t like the sound of that. It’s almost like you’re telling us that it’s fio throw the game.”

  “I’m not saying you should be fih losing. You should definitely strive to win as much as you usually would.”

  “Then, what’s the difference?”

  “The only difference is right here.” Yuel poi his temple. “It’s a mentality thing. When I say ‘test run’, I mean we should pay extra attention to our oppos in this game and try to draw out as muformation as possible from them. Especially, information ing the gap between our skill levels. Mainly, whether it exists and how big or small it is.”

  “So, basically,” Lars said. “We gotta test how much stronger we are!”

  “That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.” Yuel smiled wryly. “sider this a discame in which you are free to try things out, even pys you’d otherwise be relut to try. The goal is to uand our oppos as much as possible, and to uand where we stand pared to them.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Kai said. “For example, what do you gonna try out for this ‘test run’?”

  “It depends on how exactly the game develops, but for example, I’ll probably try out some less ventional shot-calls. Also, I’m making Lars piething other than Elf for this game.”

  “Say what!?” Lars jumped. “What do you have against my Elf, dude!? Where did he hurt ya, yo!?”

  “We discussed this before, remember?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is that so.” Yuel sighed. “Basically, I want to see how you measure up to our oppos without Elf.”

  “Why tho?”

  “They’re assuredly going to ban Trickshooter and Gunslinger, so Elf is the only st resort we have at the moment. We need more information before we decide whether this is the right stage for revealing this ace.”

  “Oh, so it’s like a trump card!” Lars grinned. “Okay, gotcha. So, the first game we just gonna chill and use some standard stuff. But if we lose, then we gonna go all hardcore on them, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay, I’m down! Heck, I’mma show I beat them just fine even without Elf. I don’t eveo pull out my stro csses today, yo!”

  More like, you ’T pull most of them out. Yuel corrected. And, your Elf is definitely strong, but...

  There were some s regarding Lars’s power level with Elf. The goof definitely spent a lot of time polishing the css over the past few weeks and he improved a lot. But, was his Elf even close to his Trickshooter and Gunslinger...?

  “Okay, I think I see you mean by ‘test run’,” Kai said. “Basically, you’re saying we don’t have to go all-in with everythi. We start out by testing the waters.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Yuel said. “It’s a rare opportunity for us to face such a strong team, so it’s important to first uand where we stand. There’s still a lot we don’t know about them, so if we go all-in right off the bat - we might crash and burn horribly due to a ck of information. And worst of all, we’ll be giving them a lot of information in that situation.”

  “Indeed, indeed.” Vi nodded. “We mustn’t show them all our trump cards right off the gate, for it shall give them plenty of time to brew a ter-attack. Firstly, we shall du experiment and interrogate our foes for information!”

  “... I guess that’s one way to phrase it.” Yuel rolled his eyes.

  “Okay,” Kai said. “I actually have a css I wanna take for a ride. I’ve been w on my Bomber over the past week, so I’d like to test it out in a serious match.”

  “Bomber, huh.” Yuel gave it some thought.

  Bomber was a css with a very high skill-ceiling, ohat demanded mastery of execution in order to be utilized optimally. It demahe pyer to be aggressive yet calcuted in order to reap maximum bes, as it was necessary turly attabs to enemies in order to deal big damage.

  As a result, Bomber was sidered det ia, but its usage rate was bogged down by the amount of dedication and meical skill required to master it. That wasn’t a big issue in the pro se, but in Rahe execution barrier made the css scarce even in Challenger rank matches.

  Kai has been frequently pig Bomber in Ranked over the past few days, so it wasn’t a bad idea to try it out on stage during the first game today. But, was it worth it?

  It’s not like she’s “bad” with Bomber. Yuel though. I just think she’s still a little far from fully utilizing the css. Bomber is only high-tier when optimized. Otherwise, it’s a rather mediocre css.

  With that said, it was a rather aggressive but flexible pick. It had the ability to dish out a lot of burst damage, but it also provided great artillery support for teamfights. Therefore, in theory, it was a very strong pick against a hyper-defeeam like the Leopards.

  “Sounds good to me,” Yuel finally replied. “If you want to test your Bainst the petitive level, then this is your best ce to do it without risking elimination. But, are you sure you want Bomber of all things? I saw y many different mages over the past month.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been trying to level up my skill in many of them. I wanna make sure I’m ready for anything.” After all, the st scrimmage really showed me how much skill I’m still g. I have a lot of room for improvement.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to focus on a few main csses like Lars and Nia do? You might be spreading yourself too thin by fog on so many different csses.”

  “Huh. Says the guy who pys the entire roster.” Kai rolled her eyes.

  “It’s a different story for Support,” Yuel expined. “Unlike you, I don’t have to directly overpower anybody in a fight. So, I have a lot more leeway in that sense.”

  “But, you’d still be able to provide better supp with a css you’ve properly mastered.”

  “True, but I don’t think it’s worth the cost. I believe it’s more important for a Support to be flexible and ter-pick effitly, rather than meically excel with specific csses.”

  “I’d say flexibility is pretty damn important for Mid too.”

  “It’s important for every role, but it’s more important for certain roles than it is for others.”

  “Yo!” Lars interjected. “No idea what you twuing about over there, but the referee dude be staring at us. I think he wanna start things up.”

  “Right.” Kai and Yuel disengaged from their debate and gave the referee their attention.

  “Anyway, I’ll be pig Bomber,” Kai decred in a whisper.

  “Okay, if that’s what you want.” Yuel didn’t argue any further. If anything, this was a good opportunity for Kai to get a reality check. Of course, I’ll be gd if she performs well. But, either way, it’ll be a good lesson for her.

  As both sides quieted down, the referee went over some final rules. It was the usual routihat followed the protocol to a T.

  And then, finally, he annouhe beginning of the drafting phase. The long-awaited csh between Stratus and the Leopards was about to set off!

  DarkestCymore